There was a time when people just ran to the mall for anything they needed. That reflex has mostly faded into the rear view, along with skinny ties, shoulder pads and Brat Pack movies, and now \u201cthe mall\u201d is usually online. This creates one notable issue: when you\u2019re shopping in person you can see products (and merchants) for yourself, but when you\u2019re shopping online you can\u2019t. So what takes the place of your own eyes?
Usually the answer is online reviews. Checking Amazon reviews for a product, Yelp reviews for a restaurant or Google reviews for a local business has become second nature for most people. Unfortunately, those reviews \u2014 even verified reviews \u2014 are often faked. So how can you tell if an online review is trustworthy? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are multiple reasons to fake reviews. The most obvious is that products (and companies) with higher ratings are more trusted and more likely to sell. That\u2019s especially important for new companies trying to gain a foothold<\/a> in a competitive marketplace or shady operators setting up shop for the umpteenth time under a new name after previously being shut down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A second, and stealthier, approach is to use fake reviews to undermine a competitor. This can happen in two ways: fake negative reviews that bring down a competitor\u2019s average or visibly fake positive reviews which can then be reported to Amazon (for instance) in order to get the competitor barred from the platform or otherwise sanctioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes there\u2019s no direct involvement by the companies involved: some people might post fake reviews<\/a> just as \u201copinion spam\u201d to make their voices heard, or because they have some sort of ax to grind. In one especially notable example, British writer Oobah Butler \u2014 who had previously cranked out fake TripAdvisor reviews for pay \u2014 created a completely fictitious restaurant and in six months made it the top-rated restaurant<\/a> in all of London as a prank. The bottom line is that fakes are out there, and whatever their motivation, they\u2019re costly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reviews are the modern version of word of mouth. It used to be that if you liked a product you\u2019d tell a few friends and relatives and that\u2019s where it would end. Now your review might be seen by thousands or even millions of viewers to a site, increasing its impact dramatically. People tend to treat online reviews just like real-world word of mouth: the reputation-management firm BrightLocal<\/a> found that 79 percent of respondents in its 2020 study trusted online results as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The online economy runs largely on trust, so when that trust is abused, it\u2019s bad for everyone. For you as the purchaser it means you may be lured into dealing with a shady or downright fraudulent merchant, or buying a substandard product. For legitimate vendors, it means losing business to fly-by-night competitors. On a larger scale, it means buyers are less likely to trust the platform, or online reviews in general. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Offenders face minimal consequences. Prosecution for buying fake reviews is possible under US law, but rare: the first case<\/a> was tried only in 2019. Most who game the system are banned but \u2014 at least in retail \u2014 can easily return under a different name (it\u2019s harder, of course, for restaurants and hotels). <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to know what percentage of reviews are bogus<\/a> \u2014 Amazon says it keeps fake reviews to less than 1 percent, for example, while review-rating services place the number much higher \u2014 but when the online economy represents trillions of dollars in spending, even a small percentage of fakery can be lucrative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fake reviews are a booming side hustle in the underground economy, which helps account for their sheer volume but also represents a vulnerability. Humans are creating those fake reviews, and therefore they make human mistakes that can be recognized. Here are a few notable examples: <\/p>\n\n\n\n None of these is conclusive on its own (for one thing, there are a lot of native English speakers whose spelling and grammar are less than perfect). To really know whether a review is trustworthy, you\u2019ll need to dig deeper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One quick litmus test for fake reviews is to take a closer look at the reviewer. Things to look for include the following <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that most of us aren\u2019t great at recognizing fake reviews <\/a>even when we\u2019re looking for them. That\u2019s why a number of tools have cropped up to help ordinary people sort through the fakes. These are the best-known: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, these tools are not foolproof. They\u2019ll sometimes disagree with each other, and may result in some false positives or false negatives. What they will<\/em> do, in conjunction with your own research and common sense, is improve your odds of making a smart purchase decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you might expect, the platforms themselves \u2014 e-commerce giants like Amazon and review-only sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor \u2014 take fakery very seriously and work hard at suppressing it. Some sites, such as Amazon, explicitly identify reviewers who have verifiably purchased a given product. That weeds out some fakes, but it\u2019s not foolproof: one common form of fakery involves paying real people to buy a product and review it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The major players use their own counterparts to the algorithms used by the fake-spotting services. Yelp, for example, updated its platform in 2018 with a fake-spotting algorithm<\/a> (the so-called \u201cghost\u201d update, because if Yelp thinks you\u2019re a cheater your reviews will be \u201cghosted\u201d). TripAdvisor uses a similar algorithm, and tech giants Amazon and Google dedicate significant resources to finding fakes as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, that doesn\u2019t mean they couldn\u2019t use your help too. If you think you\u2019ve identified faked reviews on one of the platforms, reporting it might help someone else avoid being scammed or buying a poor-quality product. It\u2019s a useful contribution to the online community, and not hard: a quick search for \u201creport fake Google reviews\u201d or \u201chow to report fake reviews on Amazon\u201d (or the equivalent for any other platform) will usually do the trick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a time when people just ran to the mall for anything they needed. That reflex has mostly faded into the rear view, along with skinny ties, shoulder pads…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":25250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[612],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guides"],"yoast_head":"\nFake Reviews Are a Real Problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Recognizing Fake Reviews<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Fake Reviews: Tools and Techniques to Spot Them<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What About the Companies Themselves? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sources<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n